Catered : A small afternoon wedding in Halifax

April 4, 2014
Kelly Neil

A friend of ours approached Sean and I a couple of weeks ago and asked if we would cater his brother's small informal wedding reception. I don't have much experience with catering but we figured, with only 12 guests, we could pull it off.

And pull it off we did.

Barely.

Sean's shopped for ingredients and prepped all of the food yesterday while I washed dishes and assembled platters and props from my collection. We arrived at 12:30pm today to set up the food, thinking we had about an hour until the guests arrived. Turns out we actually only had 30 minutes.

But we did it.

The cupcakes pictured above were made by Lori MacAskill, Pastry Chef at da Maurizio Fine Italian Dining in the Brewery Market. I texted Lori on Wednesday and asked if she'd have time to make the cupcakes for me because I was afraid of running out of time. Her response was 'Consider it done!!'. I picked up the little vanilla cakes this morning and they were the first thing I set up on arrival. I bought some carnations (I LOVE carnations - they're so ruffly and pretty) knowing the bride's wedding colours were purple and white. I also knew the purple carnation on the white frosting would pop against my green milk glass cake stand. I think Lori may have swooned when I sent her the photo.

Scallops pan-seared to golden brown then chopped and stuffed in pastry cups with crispy bacon bits and green onion, topped with a mini Frico.

This is a version of an appetizer from da Maurizio that Sean and I LOVE. At the restaurant, the salmon is rolled, like the picture below, with Mascarpone, lemon, capers and red onion and then served with tobiko caviar, baby greens and beet vinaigrette. It's fantastic, in no small part because Willy Krauch's smoked salmon is THE BEST IN THE WORLD.